Karnataka: Flip-Flop on Migrant Workers Continues

Revival of an anti-migrant Bill smacks of hypocrisy, with both Congress and BJP forgetting lessons from the pandemic exodus.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent unplanned lockdown announced in India, saw over one crore migrant workers returning to their home states between March and June 2020, as per a statement by the Union Minister of Labour and Employment in Lok Sabha, in September 2020. This number can be understood to be significant enough to make a dent vis-à-vis the size of the workforce, and the economic recovery of the originally migrant-receiving states (or destination states).

Many news reports published in the aftermath of the migrants’ exodus cited labour shortage as a reason for the partial reopening. One such report claimed that sectors, such as manufacturing, e-commerce, logistics, construction, and real estate were facing an acute labour shortage – of about 20-25% – quoting job consultants and CEOs of large companies.

Then, there were reports of manufacturers and farmers from Punjab footing the bill for their migrant workers’ return journeys to Punjab, back for work – be it on a bus, train or even flight. Given the more recent developments, it is interesting to recollect that the Karnataka government went to the extent of cancelling the trains that were to take migrant workers home (to their origin states) out of the Southern state, stating that workers were needed for construction activities that had resumed in Karnataka.

In February 2020 – before the COVID-19 lockdown – the Right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka had also mulled legislation stipulating 75% reservation for locals (Kannadigas) in private jobs – with an intention to keep migrants away. Later that year, the BJP government took a sharp U-turn and decided to keep the Bill at bay, going as far as calling the earlier proposal by the same government ‘retrograde’. Clearly, the time for rhetoric had passed; the more urgent objective now was achieving ‘economic recovery’, which seemed impossible without stringent labour control and adequate labour supply.

Four years later, this flip-flop between the indispensability and expendability of migrants in the Southern state is far from over—lessons from the pandemic funeralised and forgotten. Now, the Congress-led government in the state has kicked up a storm with its renewed anti-migrant legislation. A draft Bill has been cleared by the Karnataka Cabinet mandating 50% reservation for locals in managerial positions and 75% in non-managerial positions; however, after facing industry backlash, the government said it was “temporarily withholding” the Bill.

A local, as defined by the legislation, is a person born in Karnataka, who has been domiciled in the state for 15 years, and is well versed in reading and writing the Kannada language. This criterion – with the added emphasis on linguistic proficiency – is a tell-tale for the imagined ethnic-linguistic homogeneity and, not to mention, the political utility of such an imagination.

It may be necessary to note here that such quotas announced in the past have mostly remained on paper due to the purportedly convenient absence of enforcement mechanisms on the part of state governments. Gujarat had introduced 85% reservation for locals in 1995, but the policy was never enforced. Maharashtra, too, had introduced 80% reservation for locals in industries that seek state incentives and tax subsidies, but here too, the policy seems to have remained a dead letter.

Industry bodies are often quoted in news reports as saying that such laws are “impractical” in terms of implementation. It may not be far-fetched to deduce then that the essence of such policies is in the hoopla surrounding their announcements – which evoke, display, or forge ethnic identities – rather than the implementation. Conceptualising welfare—which is to be promised via such policies—in itself can be understood to be a political exercise that stretches beyond purely economic and social considerations.

Social scientists have long postulated that competition among individuals for scarce resources drives them to organise around non-economic solidarities, such as caste, religion, or language to acquire a bigger share of the resources – cultivating reliance on identity politics for survival. This has played a role in the springing up of “sons of the soil” movements over the years claiming special collective rights of an ethnic group over territory.

The “sons of the soil” narrative, of other times, gains traction especially during periods of resource scarcity (such as accompanied by rising unemployment), asserting that locals have a superior claim to resources and entitlements “on their soil”. This notion can be seen to be a politically useful tool to mobilise the locals against a perceived deprivation of their rights. By creating an “other” or an external adversary, this narrative pulls the focus away from the core issue, such as failure to create jobs and at the same time, leads to bolstering of ethnic groupings regardless of class, while the need of the hour ought to be a social movement inclusive of castes, genders, ethnicities, and migration status.

Anti-migrant Right-wing narratives all over the world have wielded the double-edged sword of one, threat to cultural integrity, and two, the “migrants stealing locals’ jobs” chorus. Linguistic chauvinism plays a pivotal role in this dynamic, as language becomes a marker of identity and inclusion, as well as, an instrument for exclusion – as we now see once more in Karnataka.

However, what is strikingly strange about this recent legislation—set aside the selective amnesia that is now concealing the state’s erstwhile reliance on the migrant workforce—is the context in which it has come up. In the aftermath of the migrant workers’ exodus during the pandemic lockdown, the welfare of this section of the workforce was much discussed; with the ruling BJP as well as Congress trading barbs. Political leaders, civil society, and experts had all decried the absence of data on migrant workers and of any contingency plan to deal with the massive, heart-wrenching crisis. There seemed to be a collective agreement on the precarity in the face of the indispensability of the migrant workforce.

In the general election after that, the issue of migrant workers, as a significant demographic, found its way into the manifestos of both the parties, with Congress promising protection of their basic legal rights. Against this backdrop, this sudden revival of an anti-migrant policy smacks of hypocrisy.

This article was originally published in News Click and can be read here.

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